SEO Tool Review: SEMRush

Monday, December 21, 2009

SEMRush offers a powerful suite of SEO and search marketing tools, particularly for those who've already done the basic SEO work and perhaps have an AdWords program running, but want to take efforts to the next level.

The suite includes tools for:

Google Keywords (shows what terms a site shows up for on Google, along with search position, search volume, AdWords CPC cost for those terms and other stats)

One particularly helpful report for SEO purposes is the Google Keywords report. In this example (with only identifying information removed), notice that this particular site is showing up on page two of Google for a number of key terms. It's great to be able to identify such terms; with a bit more onsite optimization and link-building, the site could be moved up to the first page on Google and get a significant traffic bump.

In another example of the same report, this site shows up very well for a number of key phrases, though again there are page two opportunities identified. Identifying all of the page one terms can also spark ideas for additional key words and phrases to target with SEO and SEM efforts.

The tool also provides a "related keyword report." So, if you have one particular key phrase that is central to your website, business service management in this case, SEMRush will supply data on similar terms to prioritize for targeting.

The companion SEOPivot tool identifies additional potential high-traffic keywords for a domain, along with the current Google position of the site, average search volume and expected traffic.

All reports can be exported to Excel for for further sorting and analysis.

The SEMRush tools provide value for almost any website that gets 1,000+ visits per month (lower-traffic sites may not be in the tool's database). For consultants or agencies managing multiple sites, the cost is easy to justify by spreading it over several clients.

The free version of the tool has extremely limited functionality, but at the very least it gives webmasters an idea of the depth of data the tool will be able to provide for their website(s). For the fee-based versions, pricing ranges from about $200 per year for the light (organic search data only) to $500 for the Pro (includes AdWords information) offering.

Bottom line: the SEMRush suite is a valuable toolkit to help SEOs and search marketers identify new keywords, advertising and optimization optimization opportunities they may not otherwise discover.

FTC Disclosure Notice: The SEMRush tools were provided free of charge for 60 days to facilitate this analysis and review. There was no other exchange of value.